College Basketball: Villanova overpowers St. John's

Villanova's Mouphtaou Yarou (13) drives past St. John's Sir'Dominic Pointer (15) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Big East Conference tournament, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

NEW YORK — Teams keep giving Mouphtaou Yarou open looks from 15 to 18 feet and the 6-10 senior keeps taking and making them.

You would think that after four years, no one in the Big East would give Yarou and open shot from mid-range, but that wasn’t the case at Madison Square Garden Wednesday night.

St. John’s decided that if Villanova was to win, Yarou would have to lead the way.

It was a challenge the tri-captain readily accepted.

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Yarou made his first eight shots from the field and finished with a game-high 18 points to help the Wildcats rally for a 66-53 triumph over the Red Storm in the second round of the Big East Tournament.

Villanova’s reward is a quarterfinal-round date with second-seeded and fourth-ranked Louisville at 7 tonight. That’s just fine with Yarou.

“We get to play one more day,” Yarou said. “That’s all we care about. We just want to play one more day and then one more day after that.”

Villanova lived to fight another day in the last full Big East Tournament because Yarou couldn’t miss, sophomore JayVaughn Pinkston overcame early jitters from playing in his hometown and freshman Ryan Arcidiacono made just enough shots to keep the Wildcats (20-12) in the Big Apple for one more night.

It helped that St. John’s was without leading scorer D’Angelo Harrison, who was suspended for the rest of the season by Red Storm coach Steve Lavin for conduct detrimental to the team. St. John’s, which took Villanova to overtime in the Big East regular-season opener at the Pavilion, was game, but did not have enough firepower to match Yarou, Pinkston and Arcidiacono.

Yarou hit 9 of 10 shots, an impressive performance made even more striking when you consider the fact that the rest of the Wildcats shot a combined 13-for-44.

One person who wasn’t surprised was Villanova coach Jay Wright. He’s seen Yarou put up those kind of numbers before.

“A lot of teams try to take him away from us,” Wright said. “St. John’s tried to take our guards away and make Mouph beat them. It’s not a bad game plan, but he came up big-time.”

The same can be said for Pinkston, the Brooklyn native who tends to get a little charged up when he plays in his hometown. Pinkston hit three of his last six attempts from the field after a 1-for-6 start and finished with 12 points and nine rebounds in 30 solid minutes. Pinkston’s conventional three-point play and pass to Yarou helped trigger a 10-4 run that turned the tied in Villanova’s favor in the second half.

Arcidiacono also came up big in that outburst that put Vilalnova in front for good. His 3-pointer with 16:01 to play snapped a 33-all deadlock and more than made up for a sloppy floor game in which he committed eight turnovers. The 6-3 freshman finished with 15 points, six rebounds and five assists. He also was 7-for-8 from the free throw, all in the second half.

All of Villanova’s free-throw attempts came in the second half. After not attempting a foul shot in the first 20 minutes, Villanova went 19-for-24 from the stripe in the final 20 minutes. A lot of those attempts came late when the Red Storm (16-15) were forced to foul.

The turning point, though, was Arcidiacono’s jumper. Once he hit that, St. John’s never got closer than three points the rest of the game.

“I felt I had to score a little bit more for our team and myself,” the Neshaminy product said. “They made a little comeback. They tied it up. They had the lead a little bit. I just felt I had to make a play. I made the three and then a pull-up jumper. I felt good after that.”

Victory, though, was not assured until Villanova took advantage of a strange play in which JaKarr Sampson, the Big East Freshman of the Year, was called for a technical for hanging on the rim on a missed shot. Sampson went up for a dunk-follow, the ball caromed off the rim and referee John Cahill hit Sampson with a T because he was just falling from the rim as another shot went up.

Darrun Hilliard made both free throws. Daniel Ochefu followed with a hook shot and just like that, Villanova was up, 50-40 with eight minutes to play. Phil Greene, who led St. John’s with 16 points, tallied five points to cut the deficit in half, but it was as close as the Red Storm would get.

“It’s a good win,” Yarou said. “Every win is a good win and we get to come back tomorrow and play again.”